6 Ways Moms Get Motivated About Exercising

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t like going to the gym. In fact I don’t like exercising.

Lifting weights and building muscles hurts. When people say, “no pain, no gain”, they mean it when it comes to exercise. If you aren’t feeling any pain while exercising you aren’t going to get great results.

Now let me clarify. The pain shouldn’t be excruciating. It will be more like uncomfortable. If you’re lifting weights and doing cardio for results, the goal is to push your muscles a little bit harder incrementally.

For me it’s a no brainer. While I don’t like exercising I do like the results. It’s part of what keep me motivated about exercising.

Anytime I talk to women about exercising I encourage them to find their motivation.

Your personal motivation is what’s going to keep you giving your all with each workout. Here are some things that may get you started, but I challenge you to add on to this list. In fact, start a health and fitness journal where you track things like food intake, exercising that are working and personal health statistics.

10 Ways Women Can Get Motivated About Exercising

1. Find a Friend.

The first thing that may come to mind is to invite an existing friend, but I encourage you to befriend women at the gym who closely resembles what you want to look like physically. Look around and find you a #WCW — Woman Crush Wednesday and strike up a conversation about fitness.

Ask if you can work out with her, but don’t waste her time. If she takes the time to let you shadow her and she looks great, she is sacrificing a portion of her workout for you. Don’t take that for granted.

2. Keep a Journal.

If you’re going to workout it’s going to get hard mentally at times, that where your journal will help. Make it visual and text. Take a body shot of where you are now and then take a new picture every month. Write down how you feel before and after exercising. Write your favorite healthy recipes. Gym people love to share healthy food ideas and when they do, Google and record them in your journal. Looking at your pages when you’re not feeling like exercising will motivate and energize you.

3. Dress the Part.

I see this scenario all of the time. A person make a decision to begin exercising. They come too the gym in what looks like sweat pants and a tee shirt two sizes too big. They where similar outfits for the first year and then by year two, they come in with a full fledged warmup suit more tailored to their new frame.

Here’s my advice, start your journey with great workout clothes. I know you’re not where you want to be, but you will feel so much better about yourself when you go in the gym dressed for success. You’ll look like you belong there even if you feel like you don’t.

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4. Join a class.

Gym classes are so fun! They give you a chance to tackle number one on this list, and learn proper exercise techniques. Joining a class also allows you to see people who are at varying fitness levels. You’ll see people who are just getting started and those who have adopted exercising as part of their lifestyle.

5. Track your progress.

I see a lot of people using habit trackers to jot down things they are trying to become more consistent at. I used a habit tracker for a month, but decided it was more work than a motivation tool.

I know a lot of planner girls who use it, and it’s not the right tool for me, but may be perfect for you.

6. Reward yourself. Set some fitness goals and when you’ve reached them, reward yourself. One of my first goals was to work out three days a week for a month and my reward was a new clothing item for the gym. Next I set a goal to reduce the size of my waistline by so many inches by the end of the month. When I reached that goal, I bought a new clothing item for the gym.